Bring deep body wisdom to your communities. Develop your expertise as a trauma-informed embodiment facilitator & transformative movement guide
Deep Body Movement & Embodiment
Facilitator-Educator Training
A COMPREHENSIVE YEARLONG TRAINING & CERTIFICATION
Our next training cohort will begin in October 2027
a fully experiential live online training + optional in-person retreat
Welcome to a unique opportunity to become a catalyst for embodied change — for yourself, for others, and for the world.
Our professional certification is for leaders, healers, therapists, coaches, educators, artists, and humans who want to transform both their personal lives and their work with powerful Deep Body intelligence techniques, trauma-informed somatic (body-based) approaches, and intuitive movement & dance methods. Together, we make it our profession to foster a more harmonious and sustainable global culture, rooted in sensual wisdom, embodied ancestral intelligence, earth-body connection, and feminine coherence.
Graduates from around the world are applying these potent embodiment tools in therapies, classrooms, delivery rooms, creative projects and studios, eating disorder centers, companies, wilderness programs, and beyond.
The certification training is an incredible journey of personal transformation that offers an opportunity to connect with your entire being and uncover your inner genius. The community of practitioners and the instructors provide an incredible support system to help you along the way. Since completing the training, I have already had the opportunity to share my newfound skills with my community and have been amazed by the results!
Tamara De Zotti
Conscious Birth Doula, The Natural Power of Birth, Norway
This is an epic training, deep, and robust. It equipped me with the knowledge, insight, and experience to feel confident as an embodiment guide. It is a seamless blend of intellect, soul, and embodied practice that will support you in cultivating your inner knowing, so that you feel empowered to take the leap and guide others into meeting the deep wisdom and beauty of their own bodies.’
Sarah Ping Nie Jones
Co-founder & Lead Facilitator at the Kopanya Institute, South Africa
This training has been a highly valuable tool and resource to deepen my work with my clients in a very meaningful and powerful way. It provides the scaffolding needed– tools, resources, community and support– to venture into the wilderness of the body, and support the life-changing work of embodiment for others.
Colleen Young, LFMT
Clinical Director at Liberating Jasper, Washington, United States
Training with us takes you on an journey into your deep body intelligence in order to prepare you to:
🗝️ Develop your expertise as an embodiment facilitator and trauma-informed Deep Body Movement guide for diverse groups and environments
🗝️ Facilitate workshops, groups, and/or one-one-one sessions that tap into the profound intelligence of the deep body and its intuitive, soul-searching movement, enabling people to rediscover their depth, purpose, vitality, and belonging to the web of life
🗝️ Catalyze social change through the restoration of the primary languages of the deep body– sensuality & erotic connectivity, imagination & creativity, instinctual and evolutionary wisdom, and soulful expression, centering these languages as vital and primary for the wellbeing of humans, cultures, and habitats
🗝️ Support women to move their center of operation from the head into their belly, womb, and pelvic root, returning to their native way of being and the health of body and soul
🗝️ Help people wake up the wilder, ancestral, archetypal wisdom inherently available in their deeper bodies, so they can access internal guidance, resources, and nourishment
🗝️ Guide people to address body pain, symptoms, and old wounding through somatic awareness and organic Deep Body Movement to release outdated embodied patterns, free up life force, and connect to the body’s communication about the path forward
🗝️ Bring the transformative power of embodied intelligence, Deep Body Movement, nervous system education, and trauma-informed care into your work with people and organizations, radically increasing your impact
The Four Training Pillars
Personal Transformation & Breakthrough
Embark on a transformative personal journey through the Deep Body work and experience its profound effects in your own life, in order to learn firsthand the power of deep body intelligence and organic movement as essential tools for self-discovery and personal growth.
Embodiment Facilitation Mastery
Develop your expertise in trauma-informed embodiment facilitation and become an expert-guide for individuals and groups, utilizing powerful somatic techniques and movement approaches that engage the genius of body, deep psyche, self-expression, and community.
Tap Your Unique Vision & Genius
Cultivate your unique talents, signature style, and personal genius as the powerhouse foundation for bringing your one-of-a-kind embodiment facilitation. Develop a vision for how to bring our transformative embodiment methods into your specific work and communities, in your own way.
Stand as Beacon for Social Change
Develop sustainable strategies for empowering people as a guide and facilitator through your fieldwork and practicum. Become an agent for social change through supporting others in restoring the emotional, creative, sensual, and mythopoetic wisdom of the deep body as primary for thriving communities.
Skills You Will Develop
Personal Growth Skills
Embodied Presence
Cultivate a heightened embodied presence, expanding your body’s intuitive genius and expressive vocabulary, and inhabiting your emotional and sensual maturity, so you can be deeply present in supporting others on their journeys
Deep Body Intelligence
Develop your own deep body intelligence and tap its emotional, instinctual, sensual, and mythopoetic wisdom, so you can guide others towards self-discovery and personal growth, aligned with the soul.
Feminine Genius
Inhabit your deep feminine nature and experience its life-shaping force in your life, accessing the intelligence of the female anatomy, and reclaiming your body’s expression, pleasure, and sovereignty
Soulful Growth
Experience changes you've longed for, pivoting your life toward more sensual freedom, soul-fulfilling expression, and restful authenticity through shifting outdated somatic patterns.
Facilitator and Educator Skills
Trauma-Informed Care & nervous System Expertise
Develop advanced skills in trauma-sensitive care & facilitation, and expand your vocabulary of soothing and grounding techniques for working with clients who access triggering material.
Gain nervous system expertise, and learn to hold safe and well-attuned spaces for supporting others in the vulnerability of their journeys.
Facilitation Mastery
Learn and master in real time unique and powerful tools for facilitating embodied learning, self-discovery & expression, and personal & community healing. Develop skills to facilitate diverse environments, including one-on-one sessions, group workshops, and community settings.
Movement Power
Master a range of intuitive, organic movement approaches with which your clients can investigate and transform outdated embodied patterns, move with their personal histories in the present moments, and access powerful in-the-body wisdom for meeting the needs of their lives. Movement is the game changer lacking in most other somatic approaches- use it!
Your Signature Style
Ground your leadership in your natural gifts and skills, tapping the full range of your personal genius, and develop your signature style for delivering your high-impact, one-of-a-kind embodied facilitation, aligned with your purpose & goals.
Community & Social Change Skills
Embodied Visionary Leadership
Working in the languages of body, nature, deep psyche, and interconnectedness, support people and communities in restoring a sense of wholeness and true belonging to the web of life, so each person can steward a meaningful personal and social change in their own right.
Community Nurturing
Learn to nurture communal spaces where people can feel connected in their soul-searching, joy, grief, and deep life questions. Create powerful structures for allyship, witness, and mutual support, fostering community bonding and collective healing.
Agent for Embodied Social Change
Equipped with the skills to help others restore the soulful wisdom of the deep body, become an agent for embodied social change, helping to deconstruct patriarchy, liberate women’s expression, reclaim our bodies’ sovereignty, and restore the connection between body, psyche, and land, as we build an Earth-tending culture.
The moving body can tell the truth about our lives in ways that nothing else can...
"Listening" to and sensing our bodies is powerful, but it's not enough: Your body must be allowed to move freely and intuitively, to express with spontaneous shapes and gestures, to flow with emotion and sensation, to investigate your soul through movement. Only then, the body will speak in its innermost voice about what you ache for, about the stories you carry inside, about what your ancestors have left you to navigate, and about how you can be well again.'
Stefana Serafina, Founder and Lead Trainer
An incredible experience that exceeded all my expectations. I received incredible support from the trainers in finding a way to implement my newly learned skills in expanding the scope of my photography work. I was able to both explore my personal growth and develop skills to facilitate embodied practice and expression. What made this training even more special was the amazing connection with the rest of the women in the program! We formed a supportive community that lasted even after the training ended.
Albena Ilieva
Photographer, California
www.albenailieva.com
The training felt fated. It triggered a very important personal transformation and that brought an entirely different dimension to my purpose work. I have so much more confidence in what I am offering and where I am going! This work has taught me how to come home to myself, to my body, to my place on this earth and as part of nature and life. That is absolutely priceless and a long sought answer to prayer for me.
Rebekah Lynn Osorio,
Voice Coach, Graphic Designer California
Training as a facilitator with the Deep Body Institute has been a deep journey of self development, stepping into leadership and traveling back to my essence to rediscover what I truly love, and bring that into the world through the Deep Body Method.
Mette Borup Kristensen
Visual Artist, Teacher
Copenhagen
The Yearlong Journey
Module One
Personal Immersion & Experiential Foundations
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Immerse in the work by applying it in your own life: Dive into deeply personal and transformative Deep Body Movement journeys
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Rediscover your deep body intelligence and utilize its powerful guidance in all areas of your life
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Encounter deeply seated, outdated embodied patterns and follow the body’s lead toward needed change
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Develop understanding of how a disembodied culture has prevented humans and habitats from experiencing our wholeness, vitality, and our full potential
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Revitalize your sensuality, aliveness, and the experience of embodied connection with the living web of life
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Cultivate embodied understanding of the deeper body as primary to our wholeness, wellbeing, and full expression
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Learn to resource yourself, both as a human and as a practitioner through practices of embodied stability amidst shifting sands
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Developing your knowledge of the nervous system and nervous system regulation as a foundation for facilitating embodiment safely and effectively
Module Two
Developing Somatic & Deep Body Expertise
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Learn the foundations of somatics, body-centric science, and the indigenous roots of embodiment practice.
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Cultivate the primary somatic languages of the body–sensation, breath, touch, sound, movement, and earth-body connection– as primary pathways to activating and accessing body intelligence
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Learn how to work deeply with each layer of deep body intelligence: Cognitive, physical, emotional, sensual, expressive, intuitive/perceptive, and archetypal/collective
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Learn how to guide your clients into a deeper felt and embodied connection with nature– a vital source of health, wholeness, and guidance
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Learn tools for accessing and cultivating the erotic intelligence of the body and rekindling the somatic knowledge of our sensual anatomy
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Master techniques for working with the deep psyche- the meeting place of conscious and unconscious- using embodied imagination, metaphor, and symbols
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Reclaim the feminine principle as the nature of the body– and as primary force in embodiment work
Module Three
Nervous System Education & Foundations of Trauma Informed Care
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Essential nervous system education
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Foundations of trauma informed care and trauma sensitive approaches in embodiment
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Understanding the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses to traumatic experiences
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Handling your client’s challenging embodiment experiences as a guide
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Trust, safety, agency, and choice as foundational in embodiment facilitation
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Group agreements, individual responsibility, and healthy boundaries
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The art of holding space for transformative embodiment work
Module Four
Mastery in Embodiment Facilitation
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Group and individual work and dynamics in holding space
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Space, rhythm, music, and silence: Holding the space for transformative embodiment work
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How to attune somatically to those you are guiding without taking on their experience
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Voice, presence, and guiding rhythm of the facilitator
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How to working with the ‘Field’: Leaning into the greater body
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Preparedness and intuitive, in-the-moment facilitation: The golden balance
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Addressing conflict and resolving challenges
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Creating an inclusive and non-judgmental environment
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Elephants in the room: Working with race, body type, age, gender, and body ability
Module Five
The Power of Movement as a Transformative Tool
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Understanding movement as the mother tongue of body and psyche, and tapping its potential for self-discovery, growth, and wellbeing
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Origins of Authentic Movement, dance therapy, and somatic movement modalities
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Guiding powerful embodied movement journeys: Process, structure, pacing, and integration
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Working with body parts, body shapes, gestures, and expressions to connect more deeply to what is happening inside
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Movement as a tool for self-discovery, healing, and personal + collective growth
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The essential toolset for facilitating Deep Body Movement®
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Utilizing community power in embodiment: Witness, partner, ally, circle
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The power of integration
Module Six
Finding Your Personal Genius in Embodiment Facilitation & Leadership
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Cultivate your unique personal genius as a foundation for bringing your embodiment facilitation to your work and communities.
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Become rooted in your unique life experience, creative voice and qualities, and your lifelong expertise
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Create a working structure for bringing deep-body and movement-based embodiment into your life's work–your way!
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The business of embodiment facilitation: Bonus business training to assist you in taking your embodiment work into the world
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Self care and sustainability
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Community presence, outreach, and expansion
Module Seven
Fieldwork & Practicum: Social Healing and Change Through Deep Body Embodiment
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Craft, develop, and refine your vision for incorporating embodied facilitation and leadership into your work and life, as it best fits your personal skills and genius and your current goals.
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Receive support and supervision in developing your field work project and deliver a full-blown experience/class series/workshop for your audience of choice, weaving embodiment and movement-based approaches.
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Beyond patriarchy and neo-colonialism: Your passionate obligation to social and cultural change
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Ethics: Legal and moral obligations of the embodiment facilitator & Deep Body Practitioner
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Commitment to inclusivity & diversity in your services
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Decentralized leadership
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Certification and completion
How It Works: Structure & Format
Primary Training Calls
Primary Live Calls
Each month, we will meet live online on the weekend for our Primary Training Calls. These will be held on both Sat + Sunday, once per month, for 3 hours of training on each day. These calls includes primary training with Stefana Serafina, as well as some live training with our guest teachers, covering an extensive range of themes and competencies.
Live Practice Calls
Once-a-month we will hold Practice Calls, 2-hour calls on Wednesdays, where you get to deepen into the learned material, practice facilitation, and get feedback. These will be led by Stefana or assisting teachers.
Pods
Once a month you are invited to Zoom-meet with your Home Pod, a smaller group of trainees you will belong to for the duration of the training. While these meetings are optional, this will be a space to practice more facilitation, connect with your community, and work on assignments together. Your pod will be in your time zone, and will be supervised by an group mentor who will track your progress and provide feedback.
Pracrticum
One-on-one Peer Sessions
Each trainee will give and receive 5 hours of embodied counseling to other trainees via Zoom as a way of developing skill and understanding of the work through one-on-one interaction (a total of 10 hours of one-on-one peer sessions will be exchanged in the course of the training.) This is one of our trainees favorite and most empowering aspects of the training!
Module Completion Assignments
As we complete modules, every 2-3 months, you will be requested to submit brief assignments like quizzes or recorded samples of your embodiment facilitation, which will be reviewed by your group mentor.
Guest Teacher Lessons & Digital Library
Guest teacher lessons will be delivered both live (during some of our primary weekend training calls), and in a pre-recorded format. These 90-minute audio/video embodiment lectures will include a facilitation lab & practice portion. You will have lifetime access to all recordings.
A Digital Library of prerecorded embodiment and Deep Body Movement practices and workshops led by Stefana to use as examples in how to facilitate your own.
Integrative Field Work: Your Graduation Project
In the last 3 months of the training, you will craft, develop, and refine your vision for incorporating embodied facilitation and Deep Body leadership into your work and life, as it best fits your unique skills, current work, and goals. You will be supported in developing and facilitating a full-blown experience/ class/ workshop for your audience of choice, weaving embodiment and movement-based approaches, and bringing to life your vision for enriching your communities with the deep-body technologies and embodiment facilitation skills learned in the training. Each trainee will receive loving support & feedback from both trainers and trainees.
Community & In Person Retreat
In Person Retreat
In April or May of 2027, we will hold an in-person retreat either in the U.S. or in Europe, depending on where the majority of our trainees are. While these retreats are one of the most potent experiences for our graduates and a beautiful culmination of the year, it is not mandatory for you to attend. We strive to offer the retreat at affordable rates, and it is paid separately from the traning.
Movement Temple
An optional Movement Temple offered every month, for a chance to drop in, move, integrate and continuously be in experience and in community.
Training Community Hub
A private Community Hub will be available for you to drop in, share, and connect.
Supervision & Support Structure
Your Group Mentor
You will have access to your Group Mentor via What’s App and Zoom for Q&A and support with your practicum. Our training mentors are certified facilitators and hold multiple competencies. Your assignments will be evaluated by your mentor and you will receive feedback. You will also receive feedback from Stefana on your field project and in-class facilitation practice.
Private Coaching Packages
One one-on-one coaching with Stefana will be available as an additional training package, which will include live private sessions, WhatsApp voice-note check-ins.
Completion & Certification
Given that you meet our standards for successful completion and meet all competencies and requirements, you will receive a Deep Body Embodiment & Movement Facilitator Certificate from the Deep Body Institute of California. Our certificate testifies to your ability to utilize our somatic intelligence and embodiment methodologies in your work. You are welcomed into our growing network of Deep Body Practitioners worldwide, and have the option to become a registered practitioner listed on our site.
Congratulations!
You have been through a personal transformation and rebirth and what you have learned in the process has prepared you to powerfully support others, and help bring social change.
Training Dates
Exact dates TBA
Weekend Primary Training Calls:
One Sat+Sun weekend per month,
3 hours on each day
9a-12p Pacific, 18-21h Central Europe
Wednesday Practicum Calls
One Wednesday per month, 9a-11:15 a Pacific, 18-20:15 Central European Time
Pods meetings and Movement Spaces (optional to attend) will be scheduled when the training begins.
Faculty & Guest Teachers
Stefana Serafina, M.A.
Founder of the DBI, Lead teacher
Stefana Serafina, M.A., is an embodiment educator, transformative movement facilitator, mentor and trainer, recognized for her unique body– and movement–based approach to personal and collective growth.
Based in the San Francisco Bay, Stefana has worked with hundreds of women and non-binary people in the U.S., Europe, and around the world since 2009, and has trained practitioners and facilitators in more than 14 countries. She developed the Deep Body Model of the human psyche and the Deep Body Movement Method, which empowers people in restoring embodied wholeness, interconnectedness, personal and collective growth.
Weaving together Deep Body Movement journeys and expressive arts approaches, nature- and soul-centric body practices, women’s sensuality & mystery traditions, embodied archetypal psychology, and dance, Stefana’s facilitation and teachings have been called "life-changing and life-giving", "deeply penetrating and rekindling", a "masterful invitation to the timeless remembrance of who we are''.
Stefana’s credentials include a Master's Degree in Communications, with a focus on embodied communication and and award winning thesis on body image & embodied development in modern culture, as well as counseling training from the Interchange Counseling Institute, a certification in Drama Therapy, and a wide range of training and research in various disciplines, including Authentic Movement, Ancestral Trauma Healing, and women's studies.
See more about Stefana and her work here
Our Guest Teachers
This is our core guest teaching team. Additional guest teachers may be added according to the training community needs.
Philip Shepherd
Author, trainer, leader in the global embodiment movement, creator of the Embodied Presence Process
Bernadette Pleasant
Dance facilitator, somatic healer, sensual speaker, founder of The Emotional Institute and creator of Femme!
Zhenevere Dao
Teacher and innovator of mythosomatic practices, founder of the philosophy of Post-Daoism and the MogaDao practice tradition.
Carina L'yall
Guide, storyteller, story gatherer, medicine keeper, host of Becoming Nature Podcast
Michelle Hardeman-Guptill
Psychotherapist,
trauma specialist, transformational coach
Julie Wolk
Earth-centric business coach and consultant for women creating transformational programs and cultivating leadership. Founder of Ashkenazi Ancestral Journeys and cofounder of Wilderness Torah.
Our Method, Your Way
What we mean when we say deep body
We coined the term deep body to speak to the wider, deeper, many-layered intelligence that converges in our physical bodies. Our empirical research has shown that the more we feel and sense and validate our physical bodies, the more we also unlock their deeper ‘skins– the emotional, sensual, expressive, intuitive, and ancestral-archetypal intelligence that is written into cells, bones, muscles, and embodied experience. In the Deep Body work, we support people to open all of these layers of intelligence in their bodies, and become rooted in a wisdom much wiser, wilder, more sovereign, and more encompassing than the intelligence of the isolated mind.
Movement is the game changer
in embodiment and healing/growth work
Movement isn’t about being a dancer or a mover, or about moving gracefully and well. It's a primal and essential language of the body. A growing number of studies confirms that movement helps us live longer and happier, and feel more connected to ourselves.
When the body moves, the psyche moves. Anger, grief, and sadness move. The nervous system releases and resets. Our shapes and gestures in motion touch and express parts of us that have been forgotten, buried, or abandoned. We unlock the preverbal, archetypal intelligence of our bodies, and it offers us powerful guidance for our lives!
For women, movement and sacred dance have even deeper impact– they open us to the powerful ancestral feminine legacy written in our bodies, and give us an opportunity to discover and claim the fullness of the feminine soul inside us.
When we support people to engage in their lives and deepest questions through movement, we are helping them tap a vast and transformative healing potential that otherwise remains dormant.
Our Deep Body Model of the Embodied Human Psyche is comprehensive method you can use in your unique way
Each guide develops their unique style of guiding and supporting others through the Deep Body work– and that style is rooted in their signature expertise, skills, interests, and talents. Beyond our unique facilitations styles however, being trained in our method means that you will be expertly prepared to offer evocative, insightful, trauma-informed embodiment facilitation, guide rich movement journeys, body–mind explorations, and community sharing, all of which will support your clients in revitalizing their deep body intelligence in order to heal, feel wholeness and belonging, honor all life, and create meaningful personal and social change.
Training+Certification Cost
TRAINING COST RANGE
$ 5500 – $6500 USD
(€ 4700–5600)
depending on the time you register
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We consider setting up 12-15 month installment plans as needed.
We are able to offer three partial scholarships in each training cycle to people who demonstrate a deep commitment to the training, clear professional goals, and a significant economic hardship. Scholarships application available in the FAQ section
A Summary of What is Included in the Cost
13 months and more than 170 hours of the most extensive, high-impact embodiment facilitation training in the field, for practitioners who want to center deep body intelligence, trauma-informed somatic approaches, movement and conscious dance in their work
YOUR TRAINING HOURS INCLUDE:
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A deep & transformative personal journey as the foundation to cultivating professional skills
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13 once-a-mont live weekend training calls (both Saturday & Sunday, 3-hour calls on each day) in a time zone well suited for Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Africa
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Top-of-the-field education offered by our guest embodiment experts, offering diverse perspectives and angles (around 14 hours total)
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A rich 75-page manual: Mastery & Facilitation Know-How for the Embodiment Facilitator, written by Stefana Serafina, exclusively for our trainees
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13 monthly embodiment facilitation practice calls/labs, meeting on 2 hours each time
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10 monthly community pods meetings (optional), 75-min meetings
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10 hours of one-on-one peer practice sessions, in which you give and receive embodied and Deep Body Movement counseling
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A free week each month for integration and ‘digestion’
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A full-blown field (real life) project you develop to integrate and test your personal concepts and style, and deliver to your community– supported by our team
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A group mentor reviewing your facilitation practice and assignments, and support by Stefana in your field project
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All-in-one Training Resource Page, containing all recordings, sessions notes, PDFs and worksheets, guest presentations, and additional resources for the training
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A digital library of practices and workshops, led by Stefana & other qualified Deep Body guides, to use both for your personal journey, and as guidelines for your facilitation
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A Certificate as Deep Body Embodiment & Movement Facilitator & Educator, provided that you meet all criteria
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A Movement Temple (optional) to drop in, move, release, and integrate
Cost & Summary
Submit Your Application Today
If you have questions before applying, please first see our FAQ section below. If you would like a team member before making a decision, you can indicate so in your application. If you have general questions not answered on the webpage or in our FAQ section there, you can also email us at connect@deepbody.org